


School bell rings, walk me home

by Isagawa



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/F, Middle School, no beta we die like men, this fic is the meme with the dog but it goes PLZ FLUFF. NO ANGST. JUST FLUFF., yes they’re babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28986495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isagawa/pseuds/Isagawa
Summary: "Orihime, didn't you have gloves this morning?"
Relationships: Arisawa Tatsuki/Inoue Orihime
Kudos: 3





	School bell rings, walk me home

**Author's Note:**

> sooooo i’m full-on back on my bleach bullshit it seems... middle school me is shaking. anyway i love the slice of life aspect of the earlier volumes, so after keigo and mizuiro, i wanted to write about the princess and dragon duo :)  
> i couldn’t for the life of me remember when they canonically met, so let’s just say they’re around ten.

  
  
"Orihime, didn't you have gloves this morning?"

❅

When Tatsuki became her friend, Orihime almost couldn't believe it.

It was exactly like this, exactly the right words: _they_ didn't become friends, _Tatsuki_ became her friend. Orihime had nothing to do. If she had, maybe this whole friendship thing would have failed before it had even begun, because oh, at the time Orihime wasn't exactly good at- doing things. Her feet would tangle when she did something as simple as walk, and her mouth would stutter whenever it tried to form words, and her hands— well, her hands were gauche, fingers twisted in knots or knocking things down.

And it wasn’t her fault: it was the shy disposition, and the inherent clumsiness, and later on it was the bullying. But surely, if Orihime had had to do something, the ship wouldn't have sailed; the bottle launched to celebrate its departure would have but broken the hull.

But Orihime did nothing, because one day, Tatsuki swooped in, and she was apparently determined to stay. She fought every kid hitting her, threw them to the ground, picked Orihime's stuff up, tucked her behind her back and snarled at them all. She said _I’m your friend._

And Orihime had thought: _Oh, this is what being someone's friend is like. Tatsuki is such a good friend. She must be the best friend one could ever have._ And that thought was immediately followed by: _If that is so, I must be an awful friend myself._

❅

"Oh! I must have left them at school! Or, or lost them...”

“You airhead."

❅

But lately, Orihime doesn’t understand. 

Firstly, Tatsuki tends to say _You’re my friend_ now, and not _I’m your friend_ . When her mom picked her up the other night, she held Orihime’s hand and said, _Mama, she’s my friend!_ and her mom had crouched down and said _Oh, you must be Orihime, Tatsuki talks a lot about you._ And Orihime could only nod and try to understand because, surely, she was not Tatsuki’s friend. She didn’t deserve such a title. She hadn’t saved her from anything yet. 

Secondly, Tatsuki doesn’t save her anymore. The other kids in school have grown afraid. They always knew better than to attack Tatsuki, but now thanks to her they know better than to attack Orihime too. And it gets Orihime thinking. She tangles her fingers together and she wonders if Tatsuki is still her friend if she can’t protect her from anyone anymore. Or is it that since the others won’t come near her, she’s saving Orihime just by being there? 

Orihime doesn’t really understand the rules. 

She would be ready to learn them by heart (she’s one of the best in class!) but it’s not like someone wrote a manual. _Or maybe someone has, but no one told me,_ she thinks. 

_Maybe the manual is given to you by your parents, and I only have my big brother, so I’ll never get it._

_Maybe Tatsuki read the manual and that’s why she seems to understand all this much better than me._

❅

“Hey, don’t worry, we’ll search them tomorrow,” Tatsuki grins. But the gloves aren’t Orihime’s problem. 

“Um, Tatsuki, I-” 

Orihime stops walking, because the words are taking too much room in her head, and if she thinks of all these thoughts _and_ of putting a foot in front of the other, she’s sure she’s going to explode. Or stumble.

Her feet look really small, lost in the snow like that. 

“I-” she stammers, “I was wondering if-”

Tatsuki glows, the sunlight reflected on the snow striking her from everywhere at once. Orihime doesn’t know this, but in ten, twenty, thirty years, she’ll remember exactly how Tatsuki looked today: her ten-year-old face chubby and round, her smile. 

“Of course we can share, you don’t have to be awkward like that!” Tatsuki says. She is taking one of her gloves off, handing it to Orihime.

It’s not the right answer because it’s not the right question, but Orihime still likes Tatsuki’s reply, so she takes the glove. It takes her three attempts to put it on, because her fingers are very numb. 

Tatsuki’s gloved, left hand takes Orihime’s gloved, right hand in hers. “Just put your other hand in your pocket, and we’ll keep each other warm.”

_Each other._

Orihime stares, the words’ weird ring floating in midair like snowflakes. And suddenly she’s smiling, a giggling fit that shakes her from head to toe, because she gets it now! She gets it! It’s not that she’s Tatsuki’s friend, or that Tatsuki is her friend, it’s that they are _each other’s_ friend! 

“Orihime?”

“Sorry, sorry! I’m just happy!” 

Her feet stammer on the ice, a little dance. 

“Tatsuki, I think your glove is magic because it makes me warm in my whole body!”

“Eeeehh? Were you really that cold before?”

She’s not scolding, she’s laughing too because Orihime is making her sway, their hands locked together. 

Orihime still doesn’t understand how the rules work, and if friendship really has to do with rescuing in the first place. She thinks that’s a thing grown-ups know about. She thinks she doesn’t need to fully understand as long as she and Tatsuki are each other’s friend. 

She thinks, when Tatsuki holds her hand like that, she can’t make knots with her fingers or slip on the snow, and maybe it works for Tatsuki too.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> miss taylor swift has been carrying my mental health on her back for months now and i wanted to write something inspired by one of her songs. this was the lovely “it’s nice to have a friend” ([spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/1SmiQ65iSAbPto6gPFlBYm?si=leOuMH0hQvia_b3nGITqnw) | [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVpO3zc4Shs%20))


End file.
